The Japanese authorities seem to be taking a much harder line against piracy and anything that allows piracy to happen. Last week four journalists who work for publisher Sansai Books were arrested for violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (UCPA).

The UCPA recently got updated to state it was illegal to offer software or devices capable of circumventing DRM. At the same time, commercial discs in Japan have started carrying DRM to help prevent copying and piracy. Those two changes combined go against a user’s right to made a backup of the work they have bought, but there’s no clear way around that.

The four journalists in question have been arrested because one of the magazines they sell online has a cover disc that includes DVD ripping software. The disc also included a guide on how to use and remove DRM from the discs.

Apparently Sansai Books had received three warnings before the arrests were made, but the magazine continued to be sold. Even so, only 4,000 copies from a total stock of 18,500 were sold between February and April.

As Otaku News rightly points out, it seems strange that Sansai Books was targeted for selling this one magazine when Amazon Japan at least 48 different magazines offering similar information and tools.

A law that prevents the distribution of such tools, free or otherwise, will have an impact on a range of products being offered. Surprisingly this includes a range of Linux distributions that include by default the libdvdcss library, which allows a user to unscramble encrypted DVDs.